darker shades of metal, hymns of goth and post-punk ...all for the worship of darkness

Monday, August 3, 2015

The Top 100 albums of the 90s : 70 to 61

Closing in on the halfway mark . If you don't know the rules we don't give a fuck about what records sold well or ruled the radio , but what has stood the test of time.70-Hum- "Downward is Heavenward"

Think you indie rock band is clever , well chances are you have less balls than Hum. The guitar tones on this album stand up against anything out today. Apathetic yet sublime, if you took the bubble gum out of Weezer and didn't give a fuck about the radio you would be close to Hum.

69-Far-"Water & Solutions"

Here is a band that should have developed much more of a following than they did. They were touching on a emotive put powerful blend of rock that would later be replicated by bands like Thursday years later.

68-Lords of Acid - "Voodoo-U"

After the hard hitting techno of "Lust" which showed this project were not just buttons pushers , but knew how to throw in a good hook, they came back adding rock guitar to give them a more industrial edge, with songs still focusing on the glories of sex and drugs this was the ultimate part album for many a drug summer.

67-Bjork- "Post"

One of the heaviest synth lines ever opens this album with her calling card "Army of Me". She go weirder after this but never had the stars align in the same way the did for this album. While vocally Bjork is no slouch, it more how she uses her voice and this album her melodies are pretty flawless.

66-Morphine- "Cure For Pain" -

Boozy lounge rock held together the groove the bass and drum create for the sax to lay down the kind of atmosphere that would not be out of place on the soundtrack to a David Lynch movie. When I go back and listen to this album is at times happier than I remember it being, which is why it did not rank higher.

65- Gwar- "ScumDogs of the Universe"
Their theatrics got you attention, but they prove on this album that they could not only play , but write some really catchy and air tight metal songs, that have stood the test of time though in more of a silly guilty pleasure way.

64- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - "Murder Ballads"

While Cave continues to age like fine wine, this 96 album seethes with the narrative violence that makes this darker in a dirtier back alley way than any other album that might earn the goth tag.

63-Slayer - "Seasons in the Abyss"
Slayer hit the mainstream with this one, they speed things up from "South Of Heaven", gone are the falsetto screams and more straight up drive and groove. Their song writing was fine tuned making this the last great album with Dave Lombardo, they never really got back to this place again.

62-R.E.M- "Automatic For the People"

This album was darker and more introspective, they captured some amazing sounds on this album and for my money proved their was no contest when it comes to comparing them to U2. Stipe's vocals dip from the nasal tenor into a lower baritone that adds to the somber atmosphere. John Paul Jones also arranged the strings on this album.

61- Failure - "Fantastic Planet"

These guys were an interesting bird, not really hard rock , but not indie rock either, they had a stoned slacker vibe to them , but something otherworldly to their sound as well as if the drugs were coming out fo their pours and dripping onto the frets of their guitars.